PCMan File Manager (PCManFM) is a file manager application developed by Hong Jen Yee from Taiwan which is meant to be a replacement for Nautilus, Konqueror and Thunar. Released under the GNU General Public License, PCManFM is free software. PCManFM is the standard file manager in LXDE, which is also developed by the same author in conjunction with other developers.

PCManFM is intended to follow the specifications given by Freedesktop.org for interoperability in free software.

Issues

Since 2010, PCManFM has undergone a complete rewrite from scratch. So the new PCManFM is totally different from the old 0.5.x series. Build instructions, the ways to setup, and configuration files are different, too.

Run as root

If Tools > "Open Current Folder as Root" command gives an error, you probably need to enter a change similar to this one:

PCManFM > Edit > Preferences > Advanced and in the the "Switch user command" field add the command "gksu %s" (without quotes). This works in Debian Squeeze running Openbox or LXDE. In Fedora use "beesu %s" after installing beesu as root. A different command may be needed if running PCManFM in other desktops such as KDE, if gksudo is not installed.